Television plays a huge role in defining national identity¹; shows like Sunrise are tailored towards the stereotypical Australian by representing typical qualities through their hosts. Programmes can also spur on patriotism, especially with international sporting events like the Olympics. However, TV can also illustrate imagined spaces in which we have never physically visited ourselves or potentially don’t even exist. There can be certain locations whose image we are constantly inundated with that we build a sense of familiarity with the place. It can be said that it is through methods like this that cultures distil their viewpoints and ways of life throughout other nations, particularly in the way America has done this using television². However it can come into question whether we truly adopt these things such as US culture and continue to prize them as American ways of life or if we adapt them into our own lives and make them our own².
With the constant repetition of location shots in weekly episodes of our favourite shows resulting in us forming imagined spaces, meaning that it is a locale that exists solely in our mind. I really recognised this concept when I was travelling through Europe earlier this year, especially with London, in that I was walking around a city in which I had never been to yet the images were so strikingly recognizable that I really felt like I had. This idea of imagined spaces can have far greater implication as it shows how programmes deriving from certain nations can really help shape their public image.
Notions and ideals of a culture can permeate through the spread of television in other nations, this can be defined by the term ‘soft power’ as opposed to more brutal ‘hard’ methods of physical invasion². Examples of this can be seen in the popular American programme Lost in Space which commonly featured their villains using the very stereotypical images of Russians therefore imparting their attitudes and beliefs during the cold war.
It is not uncommon for people to watch internationally produced shows, most shows that are watched by Australians are American after all. Yet do we watch these shows and passively absorb the other nation’s culture? I hardly think the process is that simple, in my personal experience with watching international shows I am more likely to pick and choose what I take on as I tend to react to things that transcend cultural differences and things like people’s characteristics and emotions resonate with me yet references to politics or other shows within the nation that have not been exported tend to go over my head. Similarly Sinclair, Jacka and Cunningham cite Nacify in making the claim that we ‘may think with American cultural products, but [we] do not think American’ but simply indigenize these cultural artefacts as our own².
All this can be exemplified with a recount of my recent viewing of the pilot episode of Broen/Bron (The Bridge). On a character based level there were many aspects of the show that were immediately recognizable, most overtly the relationship between the main characters Saga and Martin which make use of the common trope within crime genres of having an unlikely pair overcome their opposite archetypes to solve a case.
However there still remained the fact that the show was completely of its own culture, and certainly belonging to the Scandinoir genre³, with use of very drab images of green or blue tinged skies, ikea-esque furniture, unique editing choices as well as the use of a really confusing amount of blonde woman.
The very concept of the show based on the body being left on the bridge in between Sweden and Denmark is something we can’t truly comprehend as island state like Australia especially with the language differences between characters going completely over our head as we can’t understand either of the languages therefore remaining oblivious to certain concepts of the show.
While shows like The Bridge belong to their own genre of Scandinoir that are consumed on an international scale does this necessarily have any further influence on other cultures? On the most parts it doesn’t, although shows like The Killing which has been remade for American TV which make use of the same aesthetic do exist. This adds further sustenance to earlier claims that even though shows may be aired beyond the borders of the nation that it is produced in, there is no control over how the product is consumed and there is just as likely a chance that no aspect of the culture permeate other societies but are just merely viewed and enjoyed.
References:
- Chalaby, J 2005, Transnational Television Worldwide: Towards a New Media Order, I. B. Tauris
- Cunningham, S, Jacka, E & Sinclair, J 1996, New Patterns in Global Television – Peripheral Vision, Oxford University Press
- Butler, R 2012, ‘The Etiquette of Scandi Noir’, Intelligent Life, April 30, viewed 27 August 2014, http://moreintelligentlife.com/blog/robert-butler/crime-aficionados-stay-alert